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Reading a lecture by Nick Cave he lists Sad Waters, Black Hair, I Let Love In, Deanna, From Her To Eternity, Nobody's Baby Now, Into My Arms, Lime Tree Arbour, Lucy and Straight to you as the songs he is most proud of.

There are some great songs there, as you would expect,but I would guess only Life on Mars and possibly The Bewlay Brothers of the 12 he has chosen would make it onto most people's list (although that medley of Sweet Thing/Candidate has always been one of my favourites).

You can't help thinking he is being wilfully obtuse. After all, for instance, if he liked Some Are that much he could have put it on the original album.

Cave's list corresponds very closely with my own favourite list of his songs. But if those genuinely are his favourite own works, why has he spent the last 5 years releasing sub-Blues Explosion wank, and why does he hardly ever play Straight to You live?

With a couple of exceptions (From Her to Eternity for instance) they are mostly at the 'classic songwriting' end of his output, which is only a relatively small proportion of what he has done over the years. They may well be his favourite 'songs' without necesserily being his favourite recordings.

It's clear from songs like Straight to You and Into Me Arms that Cave could have been a massive artist operating on the edge of the mainstream but he didn't chose to take that path.

Personally I like the conventional ballads and the more extreme stuff, but he only makes good records when he writes good songs and he's not done that consistently since Abbatoir Blues/Lyre of Orpheus in 2004.

He doesn't seem to think much of the songs he's written since either, given the list he chooses (although I don't know when the lecture was written)

They should never be trusted regarding this. I remember Mick Jagger saying Out of Tears was the best thing the Stones have ever done. Also, Morrissey went through a period of picking Southpaw Grammar as his favourite solo album. Southpaw Grammar?!